Archive for December, 2006
Sunday, Dec 31st, 2006
Categories: travels
Another email from this morning:
Greetings from Chiang Mai, Thailand. and Feliz Ano Nuevo!
All is well. Marcia and I are really enjoying Chiang Mai. It’s
gorgeous here and the town is so welcoming and friendly. It’s bursting
at the seams with vacationing thais, here to celebrate the new year.
At first it made things a little hard like hotel reservations and
trekking and the traffic is pretty bad, but it’s absolutely wonderful
to be up here in the midst of so many thais, i wouldn’t say it’s hard
to spot us farang (non-thai) tourists but you definitely don’t hear
english on the street at all and 99% of the faces you see are thai. In
otherwards it’s great! It’s most certainly an experience that I didn’t
expect, but we are so glad to be here.
Yesterday we took a small day trip tour up to the highest peak in
thailand, stopping along the way at waterfalls, a “Karen” village
(tribal minority from Burma) and a “Royal Project” where the king has
set up a working community to teach the various tribes in the area
sustainable farming of cash crops in place of growing poppies. It was
pretty amazing. There are thousands of thais camping on the mountain
and the whole thing is a wonderful scene.
Last night, there was a handcraft festival, a million vendors and
booths, all selling handmade goods (it continues today as well).
Several large boulevards, closed off to traffic and each stall
different from the next. No fake designer goods, only a handful of
chinese knock-offs, just really intersting handcrafts of every
conceivable sort. we walked and walked and ate pad thai and mango
sticky rice and walked some more. On each corner, there were rows of
chairs set out for foot messages and we unconsciously chose the one
with the big lazy boy chairs. We got a half-hour foot message as we
watched the throngs of thais perusing all the incredible vendors.
Tomorrow we’ll most likely do another day-trek in the golden triangle,
an area where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet, lots of tribal minorities
up there (I say trek, but it’s less walking and more cultural
learning). and then on tuesday we’ll probably fly on to Luang Probang,
Laos, which from what I hear is the “crown jewel of the entire
indochina area”.
well, Happy New Year, folks. We love you all and where ever you are,
we’ll be thinking about you, tonight.
much love,
// masha y mundo
Sunday, Dec 31st, 2006
Categories: travels
Hello all. spotty internet connections have persisted in Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand. Here’s an email from a few days ago:
Bangkok was wonderful. The Oriental was wonderful as well in a
different sorta way. We had a lot of fun running around the city and
then coming back to our opulent luxury hotel room. I don’t know what
i’m missing more: the room, the breakfast or the concierge services.
The weekend market was amazing and huge and I wish the tianguis in
guadalajara had half the cool, cheap clothes they have here. the
palace and temples were amazing, but the coolest ones were the ruins
up in Autthaya (the old capitol). we took the sky train all over town.
So we’re now in Chiang Mai which is in the north of Thailand. We
arrived here tonight, by plane, dropped off the bags at the hotel and
hit the streets to check out the scene. The hotel is a bit expensive,
$30/night, and it’s a bit dingy, so tomorrow we’ll hit the bricks and
look for something a bit more charming.
Over all, I thought Thailand would be more charming, but i’m not sure
in what way. bangkok was nice, but it was also very impersonal. I
guess we got spoiled coming off of Bali, which is just so funky and
everyone is so friendly and then staying at the Oriental was kinda
like staying in an ivory tower. it was also so hard to take photos of
people in bangkok, everyone was so shy and inhibited. In Bali people
were jumping into the frame, in Bangkok it was the opposite. It made
me feel very self-conscious. But the signage, cars, cityscapes etc…
was rediculous, so much good stuff. I hope Chiang Mai is easier.
So I think we’ll stay here for a few days and then move on to Laos.
not sure, but we’ll either take a 3-4 day travel, by river or we’ll
fly. i’d kinda like to do the 3-4 day thing to see the countryside,
but it’s cold up here in the mountains relatively speaking. it’s actually like 65 degrees (20 celcius) right now, which isn’t that cold,
but seems so for us. we’re acclimated and all.
It’s hard to believe we’re only 18 days in to this trip. so much seen
and done, yet so much to go….
anyways, i gotta go research hotels and the trip to Laos. i love ya.
and miss ya. and i’m glad i’m not dead. i’d love to send photos, but
it’s so ridiculously hard. just checking my gmail is torturous.
love you,
// masha y mundo.
Thursday, Dec 21st, 2006
Categories: travels
Another update! nothing like th equickness of a 46kpbs connection!
Here’s the latest email, sent out just a few minutes ago:
so we’ve landed in Kuta.
Dreamland was really nice. the beach was ungodly beautiful, but Marcia
and I were getting a little tired of the food (no variety at all) and
there wasn’t really any way to take day trips. Dreamland was very
isolated as was Nusa Lembongan. I heard about the surf breaks at
Uluwatu, just down the road from the temple (about 10 minutes south of
Dreamland). So the guy who we were staying with gave us a ride out to
Sulaban, the town where Uluwatu is located. It’s at the far south-west
tip of Bali. Its a surf mecca of sorts and so we found cheap
accomodations fairly easily. We stayed in a “home stay” basically
someone’s home, where they build extra rooms for guests. it was
lovely. without knowing it, we were just down the road from a
wonderful little tin roof shack village of restaurants and surfboard
repair shops that overlooks the main surfing area, 200 feet below. we
decided to hang out in sulaban for a few days and i finally got to
surf. marcia has been peeling through the books we brought and by the
end of the second day, we were both ready to move on. the food hasn’t
been the best and this area of Bali is again, a bit too isolated to be
able to move around comfortably. but it’s gorgeous and perfect for
getting away.
This morning we moved to Kuta, which people told us was very touristy
and chaotic. but as we got here and found a good cheap hotel and took
a look around, we actually like it. the beach scene is definitely like
sayulita on steroids, with a million street vendors trying to sell you
anything and everything, but once you get off the main drags and on to
the back alleys called “gangs” (think streets that are too narrow to
fit cars) there are tons of cute little restaurants and home stays.
it’s still very “balinese” here with lots of family compounds and
incense everywhere. if you can ignore the street vendors trying to
sell you tshirts and the guys yelling “transport” (taxi) then you’ll
do alright.
It’s nice to be back in civilization. Tomorrow is our last full day in
Bali so I think we’ll try to do something cultural, maybe a day trip
outside of Kuta. We’re both so eager to move on to Thailand, but we’ll
miss Bali. it’s so wonderful here. it really is like an island
paradise.
love you all,
// marcia y edmundo
Thursday, Dec 21st, 2006
Categories: travels
So internet access has been total crap. i have no idea how anyone could live blog from indonesia or even come close to keeping a blog up-to-date, granted we’ve been in very isolated spots where good food, internet access and transportation are all at a premium.
Here’s another email sent a few days ago, to our folks:
sorry for not keeping in touch, we’ve been without internet access
since we left Ubud on Saturday. All is well. We left Ubud for a tiny
island east of Bali called Nusa Lembongan. There are several famous
surfing areas here. Unfortunately the surfing season is from june to
september and so there was not a single wave to ride. we rented a
motor scooter and drove around the island’s one solitary road (only a
few light trucks are allowed on the road). Other than surfing,
Lembongan is known for it’s seaweed cultivation and every square meter
of shallow ocean is dedicated to farming seaweed. At the north of the
island there are hundreds of palapa shacks where local families
prepare the seaweed for processing. I took a bunch of photos. it was
so beautiful.
We stayed on Lembongan for just one night. We had planned on staying
longer, but it’s very isolated and hard to move around without proper
transportation. the hotel we stayed at was alright, but we had wanted
to move across the island, but there was no way to move our luggage
and there wasn’t much more to do than hang out at the beach.
So early sunday we headed to Dreamland Beach, a small sliver of sand
tucked up against a 50 foot rock wall. Dreamland is a wonderful little
collection of restaurants and shared houses for visiting surfers to
enjoy the many surf areas near by. but here there are no waves and
there is no transportation to get to the other surf spots. It also
seems to be a major stop for the package bus tours, yesterday after we
got here a ton of bus looking tourists showed up, all muslim men, from
java with long pants, hanging out at the beach, watching the
australians in bikinis. it was a little weird. but we have been having
a ton of fun doing nothing. reading. enjoying the sun, getting our
fair share of balinese cuisine, fried noodles and rice and vegetables.
this afternoon we rented another motor scooter and went to the temple
at Uluwatu, one fo the most sacred on the island. it’s a gorgeous
temple at the top of a 300 foot cliff, you can’t enter the most
beautiful part of it though, but it made for great pictures, with the
waves crashing heavy against the rock wall below. Marcia doesn’t like
the motor scooter. i think that’s the last one we’ll rent. it’s a tad
too dangerous for both of us to risk.
Tomorrow we may move on to seminyak an area just north of Kuta, near
the ocean again, but a little more centrally located. from there we
can go to the beach, but we can also do day trips to other parts of
Bali, whereas here it’s just a bit too isolated.
We’re both wanting to move on to Thailand. but we don’t leave until saturday.
we’ll write again soon.
love,
// marcia y mundo
Monday, Dec 18th, 2006
Categories: travels
Internet access has been sporadic and almost entirely non-existant. For some reason, my install of wordpress wouldn’t let me in to the admin section. it said something about the ip address of the internet cafe that we used in Ubud had been banned by whatever service wp uses to control spam. bummer.
Anyways, on to the good news. short n sweet. We spent 5 days in Ubud, soaking up the sites. I’ve been writing in a travel journal and when we get a better connection I’ll update proper. for now, here’s an email I wrote to my family a few days back:
so Ubud is rediculously fun. we moved from the expensive ($50/night)
place to the $15/night place yesterday. it’s in a really nice garden but the room itself is a bit dingy and was probably made 30 years ago and never touched again. i probably could have done a better job picking the place. no worries though, the money we’re saving is so worth it. but we do miss the ammenities of the last place for sure.
yesterday we hired a driver and went up to mount batur, the crater lake. i thought we were going to the lake temple we went to last time, but this was something totally different. Wayan, our driver took us through a bunch of small crafts villages and the most amazing water temple. I got some insane pics for sure. one of these days i’ll figure out how to share them.
We’ve been to the Legong dances twice and the ketchak monkey dance too. i’m hooked. marcia thinks they’re a bit too long. ketchak was insane.
we went for a hike the other day north of Ubud into the rice fields. it was gorgeous. it’s amazing how Ubud is this bustling town, but you get two blocks off the main roads and you’re in rice paddies. makes me wanna ditch the car and get a vespa moped.
i’ve been getting gutted by the vendors here, marcia has been beside herself about how much money i’ve been getting taken for. but today we hit the local market and i finally got ahold of the bargaining thing. if they say $10, you say $2, and you agree on $4. good preparation for
thailand, vietnam and india. we’re finally getting into the traveling flow and we’re both looking forward to moving on to Nusa Lembongan. I can’t believe we’re still in week one. wow!
i’ve been filling up pages and pages of a journal, so there’s more details to tell, one of these days i’ll transfer them to the blog, but i can’t seem to log in to my admin thingy, so it’ll have to wait.
we’ve looked into getting things shipped home and it’s rediculous, it’s not by weight but by cubic meter, and it’s $315 + $50 fumigation fee. and they ship it to Manzanillo and I have to figure out how to get it back from there. so i don’t know what we’re going to do about shipping stuff back. I bought a 2 foot high teak sitting buddha for $40, it was so cheap i couldn’t resist. i just hope i don’t have to leave it here. and i also got an antique barong mask. wonderful.
anyways, i should go. all is well. love you all.
obviously this was done on the quick fast, since internet is at a premium here. As a follow up, we did find cheaper shipping options and we’ve since left Ubud, reluctantly and headed for Nusa Lembongan, I’ll update again with another short email, later…
Saturday, Dec 9th, 2006
Categories: travels
Greetings from the Hong Kong airport. We just got off of a 15 hour flight and i gotta say it was one of the best long flights i’ve been on. Cathay Pacific treats you right. We stopped off at a noodle shop in the HK airport and had some great plain noodles, our first of the trip. our flight for Bali takes off in an hour or so and we’re off to the waiting area. I love the chinese loudspeaker action in the ternminal and all the foreign signage. It feels so great to be on the opposite side of the world.
The wedding was wonderful and went way too quickly for both Marcia and I. It was a fun, simple affair on the beach. Marcia and I ducked out of the fiesta for a minute or two to take some time to connect and reflect. I can’t believe I get to call her “wifey” now. I love it. Getting married to Marcia has seemed so natural and effortless. Except for all the prep of the actual wedding, it’s been relatively stress-free. Regarding my transition from bachelor to married man, I never did really think that I was all that cut out to be a single guy. It’s just not in my dna. Marcia feels the same way. When we both look into each other’s eyes, there’s a whole new connection level. It’s lovely, in the truest sense of the word.
My good buddies Ryan, Tony and James stepped in my best men and I wanna give them an extra-special thanks for taking the time out of their busy lives to travel from LA to Vallarta to bless our wedding. It was amazing having our friends and family around for the past week. Every day filled with adventures, dinners and things. As we finally said goodbye to everyone, Marcia and I are coming down off a week-long high of wedding prep and trying to make sure everyone is looked after. It was all a bit overwhelming and I think we both wish we could relive the whole thing again in slow motion sans stress.
Just as the last of friends and family leave, we are making our final preps for our honeymoon. No time to get life back to normal before we leave. Late tomorrow we fly to Los Angeles and then Friday we start our trip and there’s a million things that need doing before we can take off. 2 1/2 months is a long time to be gone. Cars, rent, bills, pets, work, etc… all needing attention and time.
Just as a note for people who are planning their honeymoons: if you choose a long honeymoon, leave some space between the wedding and the start of your trip. We could have used a week or so to say goodbye to relatives, finish any post-wedding clean-up, get life back to normal, do the last minute trip prep and then be out. oh well, next time…
Little joke there, haha.
So, my sister Beth took a bunch of pics and here’s the first batch. She’s a pro of course and knows wedding shoots inside and out. She was hesitant about having to shoot our wedding, since well, she’s my sis and she should be in the photos, but I really wanted just a few photos of us medium format analog and digital. Beth essentially shot the entire wedding and the fiesta. At times I had to tell her just to put the camera down. I understand how she felt. Coverage, coverage, coverage. When we get back from the honeymoon I’ll update with more wedding photos. Til’ then, here’s bunch:
slideshow | photoset
Today is the big day. In order to get my mental in fine working order, I got the whole crew up at 8:00am to hit the morning waves. Ryan, Tony and James, my sister Beth and her friend Dave, we all rambled out to Burros to catch a nice 6 foot swell coming through. I am one lucky guy. The first waves in months, start rolling in for the day of my wedding. I grabbed a few good rides but I got tired so quickly from lack of exercise. By 10:00 o’clock the break was a parking lot of buoys, at least 30 heads in the water. I grabbed a nice left and headed in. Ryan took the fun board out and got a tired pretty quickly, on his way in to shore, he got stuck in the washing machine and managed to tumble into the rocks (that form Burro’s point break). Stepping on an urchin in the process and embedding a bunch of spines into his big toe. Beth took him to the doctor and he’s recovering nicely. It’s not a party until someone gets hurt.
So all the pre-prep is done and i’m supposed to be taking a nap but i’m on the internets writing this entry. Marcia is taking a shower and preparing for the make-up lady to get here. and we start taking photos with Beth at 4:30pm.
Marcia and I are all goo-goo over each other and it’s wonderful to have our family and friends here. My parents hosted a “rehearsal” dinner at their house last night and it was wonderful to see everyone together, in celebration of our relationship.
I can’t wait to stop calling Marcia ‘my girlfriend’ and start calling her ‘my wife’…
